Tybee Island has more restaurants

Christian Livermore

Saturday

Jun 30, 2007 at 6:08 AM

Sometimes living on Tybee Island can feel like living on, well, an island. It's beautiful, and a great place to get away from it all, but if you want a change of pace from your normal restaurant choices, the 20-minute drive to the nearest mainland restaurants can dampen your wanderlust.

Three new restaurants are aiming to give Tybee-ites a few more choices without leaving the island.

Tybee goes Thai

The first brings something back to Tybee that has been noticeably lacking in recent years: Asian food.

Two of the owners of Chiriya's Thai Cuisine on Savannah's southside have taken over Norased Grill and brought a new menu of Thai and Hawaiian food.

It was partly the dearth of such cuisine that led owners Mounir Hasbi and Vasanun Lapma to open on the island.

"I heard about Tybee and it's a nice place, and they had no Asian food," Hasbi said.

The menu features Thai classics such as curry, pad thai and Thai beef salad, as well as Hawaiian dishes such as Hawaiian chicken.

The restaurant opened in mid-May, and it only took about five or 10 days for business to start picking up, Hasbi said.

"The island is too small. If you come and taste our food tonight, then the next day everybody is here," Hasbi said. "People are talking about this because if you come and taste Thai food, it's really different."

The duo plan to open a bar on the restaurant's second floor, and to change the restaurant's name to Boonmas Thai & Hawaiian Cuisine after the first of the year.

New life for an old favorite

Many island denizens were disappointed when Tango closed last fall. One of Tango's former chefs and the former owner of Cousin Vinnie's Pizza on the island have reopened the restaurant under a new name, with the same funky island atmosphere and a new menu with broader fare.

Owners Frank Schuman and Vincent Cusanelli decided to open Bamboo Room Restaurant and Martini Bar after growing tired of working for other people.

"We've talked a lot of times about opening something," Cusanelli said. "I've always been in the business here and Frank's been doing the same thing, but making other people money."

Bamboo Room opened June 1 with a menu ranging from chicken wings to tuna steak, calamari to brie quesadillas.

The restaurant stays open until about 10:30 p.m., but the bar is open until about 1:30 a.m.

"The people are here, they're having fun. We're not going to close down and tell y'all to go somewhere else," Schuman said. "We're perfectly fine staying open later until y'all finish out y'all's evening."

White tablecloths and "art gallery atmosphere"

The recently opened Charly's seeks to blend several Tybee characteristics: cozy atmosphere nestled in a former cottage, paintings by local artists on the walls, white tablecloths and an upscale environment to appeal to Tybee's increasingly flush population.

"I think with all the condominiums and the price range of the homes now, the individuals coming to Tybee now are probably a little more than the average income earnings," said Charly's owner Charles Vonashek. "How many people can afford a home and a $500,000 condo? So I think Tybee itself is changing."

Vonashek chose an old house next to the post office for its visibility and location as one of the first stops as people arrive on the island.

The restaurant held a "soft opening" about two weeks ago. The menu includes classic American dishes such as duck, steaks, crab cakes and seafood. The average cost per person is about $50. It's open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday, but may expand to include lunch and possibly brunch depending on the market.

The restaurant seats 32, and diners are treated to soft jazz, local artwork and attentive service.

"We want to give good service, and we have the chef come to the table to make sure the entrees are explained and make sure it's done right," Vonashek said.

Cost of doing business on an island

The question for these new eateries, and those that have been here for a while, is how many restaurants an island with about 3,600 year-round residents can support.

Although the island gets a good number of tourists in the summer months, in the off-season restaurants must rely almost exclusively on locals and those Savannah area residents up for the drive.

Costs are higher on Tybee as well, said Jodee Sadowsky, owner of The Breakfast Club. Wholesalers tack on a surcharge to food deliveries because they have to drive so far off the beaten path. Employers have to pay higher wages to compete for good workers, the vast majority of who do not live on the island because they can't afford the rents. And many business owners have to pay to have trash left by tourists picked up from in front of their stores.

Add to that rising property taxes, and it can be a financial tightrope walk, forcing businesses to charge more than they would if they operated in downtown Savannah or on the southside, Sadowsky said.

"The cost of doing business here is pretty high, pretty much across the board," he said.

The new restaurants have various plans for dealing with that.

Bamboo Room is compensating by serving food from lunch through late evening, and by keeping the bar open well past midnight.

"Taxes are high, but you can't do anything about that. It's the price of doing business on Tybee," Schuman said. "Our menu prices and drink prices reflect the higher costs, but they're reasonable."

Hasbi said rent on Tybee is "much higher" than in Savannah, but he and Lapma don't plan to charge more than in town. They are hoping good word-of-mouth will bring in enough patrons to make the nut.

On the plus side, Sadowsky said, he's seeing customers with deeper pockets in the last few years, a trend he attributes to the profusion of new upscale condominiums on the island.

Still, Sadowsky had some advice for the new entrepreneurs.

"Work 15 hours a day, and do as much work as they possibly can by themselves without having to increase their labor costs," he said. "And create things from scratch. Instead of buying onions already chopped up, chop up your own damn onions."

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